Intro to 3D Printing

A little while back I supported the M3D “Micro” 3D printer campaign on Kickstarter without ever seeing a 3D printer actually run. As I posted about before, I have actually bought a 3D printed product for my Google Glass, but I never really understood the processed involved in designing and printing the objects. Well as is the case with most Kickstarter projects I back, a few months passed, and much to my surprise a large package arrived with a completely unexpected present inside.

Today I finally got a chance to install the software and get everything setup, and here is what I came up with…

After that initial test run, I figured I would go the route of many other first time 3D printers, and print myself a spooling mechanism to help dispense the filament when printing future projects. So I went on Makerbot’s thingiverse website (an awesome resource for user created 3D models), and found a model for my printer. It was designed to be printed in two parts which was cooler because then I could do two different colors. Here was the final result…